Page 15 of Together Again at the Cornish Country Hospital

Nick had been talking non-stop all the way back from the veterinary surgery and, until they’d dropped Dolly and Amy off, it was easy for Lijah to hide the fact that he was finding it hard to respond. He felt like an idiot for asking Amy out and expecting her to say yes. He was an arrogant fool, too used to being surrounded by people whose job it was to keep him happy to realise that some people had no interest in getting involved in the circus that was his life. Amy had always been her own person, that was one of things he’d loved about her. And he had loved her, more than he’d ever realised. Who the hell did he think he was, thinking she’d have any interest in going out with him again, after he’d chosen his career over their relationship, like it was nothing. It hadn’t been nothing; it had been such a huge part of his life, and something he’d never been able to replicate. Amy had been so easy to be around, such good company, and he’d taken that for granted, because she’d never asked much of him. But they’d both changed; he’d seen her professionalism today and just how good she was at the job she’d always dreamed of doing. He couldn’t expect her to just step in and be there for this latest crisis, not after a decade with almost no contact.

‘Are you okay? You’re very quiet.’ When they were back at the beach house, Nick finally seemed to realise that Lijah had barely uttered more than a few words since they’d left the veterinary surgery.

‘Just conserving my energy for my new job as a dog sitter.’ Lijah ran a hand through his hair, wondering if he’d been mad to make the offer and Nick’s response seemed to give him his answer.

‘Lij, what the hell is all of that about mate? Please tell me you haven’t convinced yourself that you’ve still got feelings for Amy.’

‘No, of course I haven’t.’ His response sounded unconvincing, even to his own ears.

‘Good, because getting involved with someone from here would be a crazy idea.’

‘Funny that, because I could have sworn I heard you arranging a time to meet up with Dolly for a drink.’

‘It’s different for me.’ Nick’s expression was open. ‘No one knows who I am, and no one is going to be following me, looking to take photos, or splashing pictures of the girl I’m with all over the internet. People can end up getting hurt when they’re caught up in all of that, you know that as well as anyone. I know you think too much of Amy to put her through that, for the sake of something you know won’t last. We’ll be gone in a couple of months. Don’t leave a trail of destruction in your wake mate, that’s all I’m saying. Amy’s great, and she definitely doesn’t deserve that.’

‘You’re right and don’t worry, I’ve got no intention of seeing Amy anywhere but inside the four walls of her flat, when I’m looking after Monty. I just want a bit of normality, that’s all, to remember who I am, and I think it’ll give me that. But we’re just friends, there’ll be nothing to feed the internet, I promise.’ He held up a hand, as if he was about to swear on the bible. He knew Nick was right and the very last thing he wanted was to hurt Amy. He just wished he could find a way of numbing the pain inside himself that never seemed to go away. He wouldn’t go back to self-medicating, but he had to find something that gave him a sense of contentment. He’d spent years thinking that the next thing he achieved would be the thing that would alleviate the constant nagging anxiety that had never truly let him find peace. Except it didn’t matter how many records he sold, how many number ones he had, or how many concert venues he sold out, it never filled up the emptiness inside him. And he was an even bigger idiot to have thought, even for a split second, that Amy could be the one to fill that space. It wasn’t fair on her; she was one of the best people he’d ever known and he’d do whatever it took to keep the promise he’d just made to Nick to ensure she didn’t get hurt.

11

Lijah couldn’t put off the trip to his mother’s house any more. She no longer lived there, she no longer lived anywhere, but the whitewashed cottage, halfway up Smuggler’s Pass, a narrow lane barely wide enough for one vehicle, would always be his mother’s home. She’d fallen in love with Mor Brys years before Lijah had been in a position to buy it for her. When she’d first pointed the house out, promising him that one day they’d live somewhere as beautiful as that, he’d been about seven or eight, and they’d been living in a flat above the fish and chip shop on the outskirts of the village, the smell of which had clung to every item of clothing they owned and had driven their first dog, Colin, half-mad with longing. Mor Brys wasn’t a particularly grand house, but it was perfect in its own way. The cottage was double fronted with a heavy wooden door and perfectly spaced windows, that somehow made it look as if the building was smiling. It was like a child’s drawing of a house, and his mother had waxed lyrical about it every time they passed by. It wasn’t until years later that they saw the inside of Mor Brys.

When Lijah was ten, his mother’s dream house had come up for rent. Maria was working more by then, but she still couldn’t afford the place on her own and his father had just walked out of their lives for the final time, after years of coming and going. When his mother had asked Lijah how he’d feel about Claire moving in with them, he’d been delighted. She’d been like a second mother to him all his life and they’d spent as much time in her tiny little end of terrace house as in their own flat, although it would never have been big enough for them all to live in. Instead, Claire had rented out her house and the income she got from that had helped them afford the rent on Mor Brys. The new situation had worked out perfectly and for the first time Lijah understood what it felt like to have more than one parent on hand. Whenever Maria wasn’t going to be home, his aunt would cook Lijah’s favourite dinner of homemade pizza. Later on, she’d toast bread in front of the huge inglenook fire for supper, and ply him with plenty of snacks in between.

Claire had never had children of her own, and his mother had never had another partner after she’d split up from his father, at least as far as Lijah knew. He’d asked them once why they didn’t go on dates, or try to meet someone else, like some of his friends’ parents did, and his aunt’s response had been short and sweet.

‘Because we’re happy as we are.’

He’d never doubted it was true. They weren’t just siblings, they were best friends. They spent weekends together and went on holiday together, choosing one another over the chance to spend time with other people. The three of them were a tight knit little group, which became a group of four when Amy had become a part of their lives.

When Lijah had wanted to move to London to pursue a career in music, he’d been desperate for Amy to go with him. Leaving his mother and aunt behind had been tough, but they had each other, and he knew they’d be okay, but he hadn’t dreamed he’d have to leave Amy behind too. He’d been sure she’d go with him. At first she’d promised she would, and had secured a place during her gap year to study for her nursing degree at South Bank University, instead of Plymouth as she’d originally planned. Then she’d started having doubts, telling him she wanted to study somewhere closer to home and that they needed time apart to see if they were meant to be together. For a long while he’d tried to persuade her that she was wrong, but she wouldn’t listen, and in the end he’d done what he’d had a habit of doing his whole life and had pressed the self-destruct button.

When he’d realised Amy wasn’t going to change her mind, Lijah had told his mother and aunt to stop passing on news about her, and had deleted all the photographs he had of her on his laptop. He wasn’t leaving the door open for their relationship in case they were meant to be together, the way Amy had suggested, he was stamping out the last ashes of it instead. It wasn’t because he didn’t still love her, or wish they could make things work. It was because he needed to protect himself. She’d already made the decision not to come with him and he couldn’t keep hanging on hoping for something to change. Making the decision to cut her off completely might have hurt like hell, but sometimes a clean break was the only way to prevent further pain. It was a habit he’d developed as a result of his relationship with his father, at least that’s what a therapist had told him once, before he’d decided that therapy raked up more trauma than it was worth.

The legacy of his father’s disinterest had caused Lijah more issues than anyone apart from Nick and Claire knew. Amy had known how much it affected him, back when they were together, but in some ways it had worsened over the years. It was behind the crippling anxiety that would often take hold of him just before he was about to go on stage, the imposter syndrome and fear of failure a consequence of rejection by a parental figure according to another therapist. It made sense he supposed; after all, if one of your parents considered you to be of no value in their life, what kind of value could you possibly have? It didn’t matter how many people were screaming his name, or buying his records, none of that could fill the gap.

Lijah had quickly worked out that seeking validation through a string of meaningless liaisons wouldn’t work either. That wasn’t to say there hadn’t been relationships, but the one-night stands had always left him feeling worse about himself instead of better, because in a weird kind of way they felt like another form of rejection, even if the decision to keep things casual was often down to him. He’d promised his mum that he wouldn’t be another fatality of fame and, after she’d died, it was probably that promise that had saved him. His aunt had reminded him of it the day after they’d lost her, when he’d been so desperate to numb the pain he would have taken anything. But because of her words, he’d stuck to the medication the doctors had prescribed, and when that started getting out of hand, it had been the promise to his mother that had made him get help. Throwing himself into work hadn’t seemed like an issue, and he’d kept going and going until the burnout had knocked him off his feet. Now he was back outside the cottage on Smuggler’s Pass, about to see his aunt face to face for the first time since his mother’s funeral.

The landlord had put Mor Brys up for sale just after Lijah’s first album had hit the number one spot on both sides of the Atlantic – the album he’d penned in the wake of his breakup with Amy – and he’d been desperate to buy it so that his mum and aunt could stay in the home they loved. It had been a shock to discover that, unlike in the movies, he didn’t suddenly get mountains of money the moment he had a hit record, and they’d almost missed out on the house, after someone put in an offer for the asking price. Fate was on their side, though, and by the time the sale fell through, Lijah finally had scraped together the money to buy it. Later on, when the money did start rolling in much faster, he’d offered to buy Maria and Claire something bigger and better, but his mum had turned him down flat.

‘There is nowhere better.’ And that had been that. Mor Brys was their dream home, and they’d insisted they wanted to stay there forever. Only none of them had realised that Maria didn’t have forever, or anything like it, and within four years she was dead.

‘Oh my love, am I dreaming, or is it really you!’ Claire threw back the door before he even had the chance to knock. Her cheeks were flushed with colour and her eyes shining, as she reached up and took his face between her hands. ‘I can’t believe you’re here, I’ve missed you so much.’

‘I’ve missed you too.’ There was a lump in his throat as he spoke, because there was someone missing, someone who should have been standing in the doorway beside Claire. It was what had made it too hard to face coming home before now. There were memories of his mother in every corner of the house, and he knew her absence would be gut-wrenching once he stepped inside. But the longer he stood on the doorstep, the more chance there was of someone spotting him. That would create another set of problems he wasn’t sure he could cope with right now. The last thing either he or Claire needed was the press hammering on the door.

‘Come in, come in. Where are your bags? You are staying, aren’t you? Please say you’re staying.’ Her words came out in a rush, but there was a pang of desperation which proved how much she wanted him there. Guilt prickled at Lijah’s scalp again. His aunt was the only person who’d felt the pain of his mother’s death to the same extent he had, maybe even more so in some ways, because she’d been left behind in the house they’d shared, confronted by Maria’s absence every day. Yet Lijah had let her face it alone. After the funeral, he’d left straight away, burying himself in work like never before. He could pretend to himself that his mother was back home in Cornwall, bustling around the house, listening toAbsolute 80son the radio and cooking up a storm. Except now he was about to go into the kitchen and the space she’d always occupied would be empty. He wouldn’t be able to pretend any longer, and suddenly he wasn’t sure he could do it. It was as if Lijah was frozen to the spot and, as he looked at his aunt, he couldn’t even respond to her questions, let alone step across the threshold.

‘Oh love, I know this is hard.’ Claire wrapped an arm around his waist. He hadn’t needed to explain it to her, she understood because she’d lived with the loss of her beloved sister every single day for the last six months. ‘But you can’t stand out there on the street forever. Sometimes, even when you know it’s going to hurt, you have to do it anyway. If you don’t, you’re never going to be able to move past what you’re feeling now.’

Lijah nodded and allowed his aunt to sweep him into the hallway, with her arm still around him, almost as if he was a young boy again. The breath caught in his throat at the familiar scent of vanilla – his mother’s favourite smell. She’d always had wax melts on the go, filling the air with the aroma that reminded him of her baking, even when she wasn’t busy whipping up a batch of cupcakes or her famous Victoria sponge. Baking was just what she always did, and then suddenly she was gone.

‘Come on my love, I think we need a cup of tea.’ Claire led the way down the hallway and for a moment he wanted to laugh. That had been the solution to everything when he was growing up. He’d drunk champagne in some of the most exclusive clubs and best hotels in the world, but none of that came close to matching how it felt to sit across the table from his mum and aunt, just chatting about nothing much at all. It was just one more thing he hadn’t realised meant as much as it did, until the chance to ever do it again had been taken away. Now he would give anything –anything– to be able to sit down with them both, for a cup of tea and some cake, and to put the world to rights. Being in his mother’s kitchen without her was every bit as painful as he’d expected it to be.

‘I can’t believe she’s gone.’ They were the same words he’d said to his aunt when he’d come home for the funeral, and they’d cried together. He’d told himself at the time that he was already through the worst of it, but deep down he’d known he was lying to himself. He’d only glimpsed the pain, before stuffing it back down inside. Eventually it had come bursting out, like a broken jack-in-the-box that refused to go back in, no matter how hard he tried to force it.

‘I couldn’t either for a long time.’ Claire flicked the switch to boil the kettle, and Lijah took a seat at the kitchen table. ‘At first, I’d wake up every morning and it would hit me all over again.’

‘I’m so sorry I didn’t come home sooner. I let you down, but I just wasn’t ready to face it.’ Lijah could see the pain etched on his aunt’s face, but she was already shaking her head.

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